I posted the following in one of the threads that dolbyman (above) gave a link to:
I bought the Magic Kingdom set. It took a while to receive them, but I did receive them.
The ONLY reason I bought it was because my wife kept saying she'd wished we'd videotaped Wishes, so I wanted to surprise her. Honestly, it's THE ONLY part of any of the discs that I've watched. In other words, the review I'm about to give may not be accurate for other parts of the discs.
Like I said, I wanted my wife to be able to watch and listen to Wishes at home. I hate to say it, but ...
It is a very, very poorly done video.
They really should be ashamed of themselves for selling it.
With my little hand-held digital camera, a still camera with limited video capability, the one minute that I recorded of Wishes as a spur of the moment thing is SOOOOO much better than what I bought.
First of all, if YOU were to videotape Wishes, where would you position yourself? Also, if you were to videotape Wishes to SELL it, where would you videotape from?
Well, when I was there almost 4 months ago, we were seated on the curb at the Hub, not far from the bridge to Main Street, a few yards from the popcorn cart to the right of the main walkway of the bridge. There was no one in front of me except for occasional people walking by, but they only occasionally and TEMPORARILY got in the way of the Castle.
On this disc, the person doing the video is on Main Street. Not at the end of Main Street, ON Main Street. They are far back enough on Main Street that the BUILDINGS (Casey's Corner on the left, Plaza Ice Cream Parlor on the right) often got in the way of the fireworks on some of the wide shots. AND AT ALL TIMES, A LARGE TREE BLOCKS OUT MOST OF THE FIREWORKS TO THE RIGHT OF THE CASTLE. Seriously -- you can't see any fireworks to the right of the Castle, except as seen filtered through a very big, very leafy tree. The camera also moves down at times, giving you an entertaining viw of the backs and sides of people's heads.
Okay, I just did the above from memory. I thought to myself, better go look at it again to make sure this is accurate, since I'd hate to say such negative things and be inaccurate. HANG ON -- IT GETS WORSE!
This was obviously shot in November or December of 2005. I got the year because the Castle is decked out in the Happiest Celebration on Earth stuff. How do I know the approximate month? Because THERE IS THICK CHRISTMAS GREENERY GOING FROM ONE SIDE OF MAIN STREET TO THE OTHER, WITH A BIG WREATH IN THE MIDDLE -- THIS CUTS THE SCREEN IN HALF!!! To say it's a little distracting and that it ruins the visual effect is an understatement. I don't know how I forgot about THAT one.
At least the audio is decent enough -- it's not like the camera person is talking or anything like that.
I can't believe they have the guts to sell that stuff. Now like I said, I've NEVER viewed any of the other parts of the Magic Kingdom discs. The rest of it might be just great. But I'm terribly dissatisfied with the Wishes part of it. I did a much better job with the minute that I taped myself, and I just did it very casually for my own use.
